


go on standing

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: :P, Daisy POV, Daisy/Lincoln stuff, F/M, Phil Coulson has sensitive ears, Sad Sexy Baby Deer Phil Coulson, attempt at a skoulson fight okay, classist douchebag Lincoln Campbell, righteously angry Daisy Johnson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 22:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6396442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy is angry and done dealing with men who just want to be calm and level-headed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	go on standing

"We’ll have to wait and see."

Coulson frowns as he says it, but he seems so _fucking_ calm, hands folded neatly on his desk, and it feels like that’s all he ever says to her anymore. And it’s not even that they can’t act yet — she _knows_ this, she gets it — it’s that it’s _all he ever says to her_.

"Don't you ever get tired of saying that?"

"Daisy..."

"Don't 'Daisy' me,” she scowls at him. “ _I_ don't have to wait and see. I know exactly what we're going to find, and so do you. All your ‘wait and see’ means is that more of us are going to be in danger while SHIELD tries to convince the president that that’s even a _problem_!”

He sets his jaw and rises from his desk, walks over closer to her so that he’s not looking up at her anymore.

“I’m moving as fast as I can. What do you want me to do?”

“Just tell me that you get it. Tell me that you know what we’re going to find. Talk to me about our options.”

“I’m not sure we have any options,” he replies, that straight, careful face, like he’s pretending he doesn’t have emotions, and she _hates_ it.

“We’re talking about my people _dying_.”

His jaw tenses again, and she can see his cheeks flush.

"Do you think I don't know that?"

At least he doesn’t seem calm anymore, at least he seems as anxious and scared and angry as she is, and she knows it’s wrong, but it soothes something in her to see him worked up instead of so...calm.

When they first met, she thought for like, a minute, that he was a robot secret agent guy with no feelings, but he’s not. He had proved that so fast, the way he cared about Mike and Ace, the way he wanted to save people as much as she did.

But it slips through, sometimes, this dispassionate facade, and she wonders if it’s who he used to be _before_ , that guy he doesn’t seem to like very much. And, well, she doesn’t like him that much, either.

There’s nothing more horrible than the moments when that’s all she can see when she looks at him — the calm and the lack of passion and the focus on the _rules_.

"If you knew that, you’d _say_ that, instead of just telling me to wait!”

"You're talking about an act of war!”

“That’s not what I’m saying! But you could at least acknowledge what the right thing to do is!”

“I don't have the luxury of planning whatever I want!"

"So, what, you think it's a luxury to be where I am?”

"Of course not! I didn’t mean…” He swallows and shakes his head, and it’s like the anger drains out of him. “There's no luxury here. Do you think I want to hold you back from saving people? But we just..."

"We can't," she spits bitterly. "We have to wait and see."

“I’m trying, Daisy.”

"You're trying."

"I'm trying," he repeats.

"Well your _trying_ looks a lot like doing nothing."

She turns and walks out of the office, and Coulson collapses into his chair with a harsh sigh behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

She can feel Lincoln walk into the room behind her, and she tugs the earbuds out of her ears to turn and smile up at him as he wraps his arms around her neck. It takes effort to keep herself from flinching, though. She’s too raw for touch, still, but after she cools down she'll probably want some release.

Lincoln has been good for that, for _release_ , for a way to burn off the frustration at being forced into inaction, the frustration when she feels like there’s no one around who will just...talk to her.

It’s probably selfish, how much she wants someone who will just listen, who will agree, who won’t meet her every word with counterargument or a plea to wait. That was what Miles was the best at — at getting righteous and angry with her, even when there was nothing they could do right then. A way to feel better about things that were wrong.

But Mack and Lincoln both disagree with her, Simmons is touchy about Inhumans, May has never been one for conversation, and Coulson is too concerned with justifying his inaction to even hear what she’s saying.

So it’s...lonely.

But, well, at least there’s _release_.

"What are you up to?" Lincoln asks as he pulls back, like he can sense that she doesn’t want him wrapped around her right now.

"Tapes from the Alien Contagion Symposium," she makes her voice deep and sarcastic as she says the words, like that distances them from her mouth somehow.

He grimaces.

"Why would you listen to that?"

Of course Lincoln doesn’t get it. Lincoln doesn’t understand most of what she does, like all that matters for him in life is being comfortable. And she can appreciate that. She knows — god, but she _knows_ — what it is to just want to find somewhere you fit, somewhere you can just be comfortable.

She’s been there, even if she needs more out of her life than comfort.

So she tries, she really tries, to be sympathetic. But sometimes it feels like all he wants is to drag her away from SHIELD, from the work she needs to do. Sometimes it feels like he only cares about himself, and she wonders when she ended up surrounded by all these passionless people.

Daisy clenches her jaw slightly, like that will help her shore up patience for him when she currently has none.

"Someone else has set up a camp, secret and off the records. So far, I can trace fifty Inhumans — mostly newly transformed — who have gone in. And we need to find out who’s taking them."

"And you think it's someone who was there?"

"I think it's a place to start, and Coulson won't even talk about possibilities until he's gotten all the intel.”

She frowns. It feels like a betrayal somehow to tell Lincoln about how angry Coulson has made her — like she’s being disloyal — but she needs to get it out. And Lincoln would understand, wouldn’t he? Why it’s frustrating that Coulson keeps holding back, being _calm_ when it’s the life and death of her people (of Lincoln’s people) that they’re talking about?

"He has other priorities," Lincoln suggests.

"Yeah," Daisy sighs. "I get that he can't act without support, but it's like he won't even talk to me about it. He wants me to be level-headed, and how can I be level headed when someone wants to put us in camps?"

Lincoln nods, but he looks all level-headed about it, too. She frowns, wonders if Coulson would rather deal with Lincoln about this. Two calm, level-headed guys.

“What?” She half-snaps at him and his stupid level-headed face.

"I just think… You don't know what the camps are about. It could be a safe space."

The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and when Lincoln reaches forward to touch her again, she flinches and pulls back.

"No, I know _exactly_  what the camps are about. You don't go rounding up people who are different for _good_ reasons, Lincoln."

"But if there is a cure developed, having everyone in one place —”

"Could mean the end to Inhumans."

Lincoln shrugs, like this isn't the worst thing — like the government rounding up people and administering a "cure" against their will or when they’re too scared and misinformed to know what they’ll want long term, like that isn't the worst thing — and Daisy scowls.

"Daisy —"

“Are you gonna tell me more about how the _cure_ could be good?”

“It could be,” he responds, too quickly.

“Not in the hands on the government. Not in the hands of someone who has set up a camp.”

“But the cure —”

“We are not a disease,” Daisy asserts. “Please stop trying to —”

“You just can’t understand the science,” Lincoln argues back. “Technically —”

“Oh, please tell me more about how I’m _technically_ a disease, _Doctor_ Campbell.”

“Will you stop holding it against me that I went to medical school?”

“Will you please stop using your medical school background as a way to convince me I’m diseased?”

“Well, for those us who didn’t drop out of high school —”

It’s like being slapped in the face, the way he throws her past at her like it’s either a blessing (she’s so fucking _zen_ ) or a curse (she will never be as educated as him). And she’s dealt with it _plenty_ in her life, even from the people here at SHIELD, but she’s gotten so used to being judged for her skills, for what she brings to a team now, that it feels unreasonably painful.

He stops, whether because he sees the look on her face or because he knows he’s crossed a line, and she can see him clench his fists. She wonders how close he came to losing control.

“Daisy,” he starts, shaking his head.

"Just don't," she dismisses him and jams her ear buds back in. "I've got work to do."

Lincoln pauses at the door and frowns back at her before he leaves.

 

* * *

 

 

"They're as human as we are, just with a little something extra," Coulson's voice plays into her ears, and Daisy pauses the recording.

She's listened to it — to those words, just that — ten times, come back to it again and again as she listens to other delegates dehumanizing her people. Her.

Amidst all that, there's Coulson. Gentle and compelling and quietly passionate, telling world leaders that people like her are _people_.

It's hard not to remember his face — his eyes shining and his smile too wide — as he told her that she was still the red corvette to him, just...with something extra.

She lays her forehead down on the desk as she reverses and then plays it again.

Coulson isn’t arguing that the camps might be good, just that he can’t do anything that might have negative political consequences. That might make it harder to advocate later. She gets that.

He really…

She swallows and thinks back about the days after she changed, about the way he came and ate with her, about the way he stayed close. And everyone did — everyone did their best, and she’ll never be able to be anything but grateful to all of them — but Coulson _especially_ , it was like he only cared about what she needed. It's not like she's forgotten, but she's been so focused on trying to shore up her connections to Inhumans that she's ignored how important he was. Is.

And it’s felt, lately, like she needs to hold onto Lincoln with both hands, like he’s her one tie to a family and a culture that says her powers are part of her, part of something bigger. Like he's her one tie to a family where she had a birthright, where she had a name, where she had a place.

But it’s not Lincoln who made her feel that. What she's clutching onto with him, it's not really about  _him_ , she knows. She feels it like relief, like she could let him go and not lose anything, like she could let him go and still be Inhuman, still be herself.

Besides, even before she got to Afterlife, it was Coulson who told her that she was still herself. It was Coulson who told her that he still saw her as the same, but with something a little extra.

She backs up the recording, plays it again.

 

* * *

 

 

When she walks back into the Director’s office, it's late. Really late. She half-wonders if he'll even be here, if she should wait until tomorrow, but he's standing at the window, staring at his own reflection in the darkened glass.

She wonders how long he’s been like that, and what he’s seeing.

Their eyes meet in the reflection, and she can see the way his tense face softens as he looks at her.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Hi." His smile is weak, and he shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Daisy."

" _You're_ sorry?"

"You're right."

"No I'm not. I'm just...angry.” She presses her lips together, catches her top lip between her teeth and lets it slip out slowly as she contemplates him. “Phil, I'm so angry lately."

He turns from the window and meets her eyes for real.

"With good reason,” he tells her, voice quiet. “You _should_ be angry. And our hands are tied by a lot of things, but your anger..."

"It's not useful."

"It _is_ ," he gently corrects her. "Your people, they need a passionate advocate. They need someone who cares about what's best, and who is always going to do whatever it takes for them."

"We also need someone like you. And I'm sorry I —”

"Please don't be sorry," he shakes his head.

Slowly, he turns towards the whiskey on the table and holds up the decanter in offer. Daisy nods and walks closer to him to accept her glass.

"It's not your fault that we can't do anything. I shouldn't be angry at you."

"But I should be better at putting aside the questions of what we can do legally and just...be angry with you."

He smiles at her as he says it, and it’s so much exactly what she wants.

"I think I'd like that," Daisy smiles at him and steps closer.

"I feel powerless sometimes," he admits. "The whole reason I got in bed with the ATCU was to try to get things done, and it was…” He trails off, looking a little distant for a moment, and she wonders what he feels about that, what Rosalind Price really meant to him. He shakes his head. “It feels like it's just left me with more road blocks."

Daisy nods.

"It's hard not to be nostalgic for the days when we could break protocol.” She remembers Coulson telling her to forget protocol, that they were going to get their answers. It's a horrible memory, but somehow a wonderful one, too. In the dark, cornered and terrified, but with him. She pauses and sips her whiskey, rolls her eyes at herself. “But then, we were breaking protocol because SHIELD was overrun by Nazis, so..."

"I'd think you'd be nostalgic for your Rising Tide days. I bet there was very little protocol you had to worry about then."

"That's true. There were good things about it. But...I never really miss it much?"

"No?"

"There are benefits to SHIELD's way of doing things."

"Like?"

"The people. May. Mack. Simmons." She pauses and just...looks at him for a long time, taking in the picture he makes in his tight jeans with his shirt sleeves rolled up, open collar so she can see a little peek of his chest hair, five o'clock shadow visibly fuzzy against the smooth line of his jaw. He’s handsome, good to look at in a way she doesn’t let herself appreciate often. "You."

He smiles at that, sweet and pleased, and his eyes go softer. It makes him somehow more handsome.

"I was afraid you'd stopped being glad you met me." He says it with a smile, but the kind that quietly reveals that it's a real fear. "I haven't been much of a friend to you lately."

"No, you have."

"Oh?"

She bites her lips and looks at him through her eyelashes, watching his expression closely as she tells him:

"I listened to the recordings from the symposium."

He frowns and looks mostly horrified.

"I'm sorry you had to hear all that."

Because of course that's what he would think about, about her well-being, about the horrible things other people said and not about the nice things he said.

"It was no worse than I was expecting," she shrugs, pretending it hurt her less than it did, like if she doesn't acknowledge it, it isn't real. "Bobbi was right; people fear what they don't understand. But you...you tried so hard to get them to understand."

"I didn't succeed," he shrugs, like that invalidates his attempt. And she supposes that in the end, he didn't succeed. In the end, maybe everything is worse off.

“But you tried. And you were so…” Her eyes sting with it, with how much he tried. “You’re really on my side, and I just —”

“Of course I’m on your side.” He’s perhaps too vehement, like this is the most important thing, and she can't believe she worried he was passionless, that he was lost in being too level-headed. “I’m always on your side.”

His quiet certainty twists something in her chest, and it’s like she’s felt so fucking alone for months and months, alone even with a team, even with people around her twenty four hours a day.

And suddenly...she’s not.

She swallows and sets down her glass, watching as his eyebrows draw together. As she takes a step closer to him, his eyebrows shoot up, his whole face open and soft in pleasant surprise.

He sets down his glass next to hers like he knows exactly what she wants, and when she wraps her arms around his neck, his arms circle low on her back and pull her against his chest.

She breathes in near the collar of his shirt, where the light scent of his cologne makes her brain just a little foggy. He’s so _warm_ against her, the kind of warmth that eases her muscles, that makes her relax for the first time in god knows how long.

It’s not the exhaustion of _release_ , but something more real and pleasantly heavy, like she could fall asleep with her head on his shoulder.

They stand like that for a long time, so long she loses track, but Coulson’s palm rubbing a soft circle on her lower back snaps her out of her near-trance.

“I’ve missed you,” she tells him, whispered against his neck, and it’s slightly a revelation but also old news — something she’s known, but not fully realized, especially since Coulson has been right here for months and months, it’s just that he’s been…distant. Or maybe she has.

“Me, too,” Coulson answers, voice soft and low, so close to her ear, she can’t help a tiny shiver. His hands feel so careful, almost like he’s worried he should stop touching her. He doesn’t, though. His right hand keeps pressing soft circles at the base of her spine, and his left sits in the middle of her back.

And it’s the point where she should pull back, she knows. Actually that point probably already came and went several times, so she gathers the willpower to pull back, and as she lifts her head off of his shoulder, her nose brushes his earlobe and Coulson groans.

He _groans_ and his right hand sort of claws at her shirt in an involuntary reaction, and Daisy freezes as she listens to his breath quicken. She can _feel_ the change in him, in his vibrations, the way he’s moved from relaxed to tense.

 _Arousal,_ she thinks.

She likes the way it feels: Coulson's aroused body against hers, Coulson's aroused vibrations washing over her.

It’s never occurred to her that she can want this — want Coulson clutching at her and _groaning_ — but she finds that she does.

Perhaps, even more, it’s never occurred to her that _he_ could want _her_ like this, like tentative steps towards something erotic, like groaning and holding her, like opening himself up to her touch. But he seems...to want it.

“Daisy,” he whispers her name, sounding strangely desperate.

“Uh huh?” She murmurs just under his earlobe and Coulson exhales a harsh breath. She’s half-convinced that he’s going to tell her to stop, that he’s going to step back, that he's going to be all  _shocked_  at where their innocent hug has gone.

“Daisy you’re —”

Before he can finish, she carefully — very slowly and purposefully — nudges at his earlobe with her nose, unable to hold back a smile at the way he moans her name. One more brush of her nose against his earlobe, and Coulson’s hands spread wide across her lower back, no longer cautious or careful, and pull her tighter up against him.

“Daisy,” he whispers her name again, something urgent in his voice, and she can feel him shaking.

“Phil,” she tries, whispered right into his ear, and it’s different like this, suggestive of a different kind of intimacy.

She’s just wrapping her head around the idea that she can kiss him — kiss Coulson, kiss _Phil_ — when the sound of a throat being cleared behind her shocks her out of her thoughts.

Daisy only has to turn her attention away from his ear to see Lincoln’s reflection in the window over Coulson's shoulder. She lets go of his neck, pulls her nose away from his ear, but it takes Coulson longer to release her. It’s almost fearful, like he’s afraid he’s losing his only chance, and he looks pained when his palms finally slide off of her hips.

Now that she’s paying attention to something other than Coulson, she can feel Lincoln’s vibrations, feel the way he’s agitated but not sure what he’s seeing. A glance in the mirrored surface of the window backs that up, like he’s confused and angry at the same time. Confused about whether he should be angry.

“I figured you would come by my bunk after you cooled down,” Lincoln says as though Coulson isn’t even here, and she can see the way Coulson almost winces at the statement. She wonders if it’s at the reminder of their relationship, or at the way Lincoln seems to be asserting himself, asserting his ownership of her.

“You figured wrong,” Daisy tells him before she turns around to see him standing in the door.

He thought she would come by to apologize, that's what he means. That's what always ends up happening when they talk about Inhumans or a cure, and the whole idea of it leaves a bitter, bile taste in the back of her mouth.

“I thought we probably need to talk.”

“Yeah,” Daisy nods. “Yeah. We need to talk. I’ll meet you in your bunk.”

Lincoln frowns at her, like he can’t understand why she isn’t just following him, and then nods awkwardly and turns away from the office.

She waits a long moment as she senses his vibrations get further away, and then turns back to Coulson.

“There’s a talk I’ve been...needing to have with him.” Daisy tells Coulson, tilting her head and watching for any movement in his expression.

He swallows and nods, and she swears she can see _hope_.

“Are you going to be okay?” He licks his lips, looking unbearably awkward as he asks, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“Yeah. Yeah I think I’ll be fine. Are you...gonna be up for a while?”

“Probably. I might read a book in my quarters.”

“So if I came by there...we could continue this conversation?”

He almost smiles, something awkward and boyish and cute, and she can’t remember if she’s ever noticed that he’s _cute_ before. Handsome, yes, but cute...

“Were we having a conversation?”

He tilts his head as he asks, and his shy smile is definitely cute.

“Mmm,” she nods, “a really good conversation.” A smile slips through the layer of awkwardness that seems stuck between them, and slowly, she raises her hands to cup his cheeks, to run her index fingers softly against his earlobes, grinning as he shivers.

“Yes,” he almost hisses, pressing closer to her. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll see you later,” Daisy whispers and pulls back from him, smiling at the way he watches her go. “But just for a conversation...nothing…”

She rolls her eyes at herself because she can be really forward but somehow putting things in words is a weak spot.

“We’ll take it slow,” Coulson suggests, and Daisy smiles in return.


End file.
